British Judge Quits Following Investigation Over Antisemitic Comments

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Flag of the United Kingdom. A British judge in northern London resigned prior to his impending removal over antisemitic comments he made. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org– A British judge in northern London resigned prior to his impending removal over antisemitic comments he made on Facebook, the U.K.-based Campaign Against Anti-Semitism (CAA) grassroots group announced Thursday.

Following an official year-long investigation into the matter, CAA cited the British Judicial Conduct Investigations Office as saying that magistrate Abul “Abz” Hussain “has resigned from judicial office following an investigation into an allegation that he had posted racist and antisemitic comments on social media. A disciplinary panel recommended that Mr. Hussain be removed from the judiciary, but he resigned before the disciplinary process had been formally concluded. His resignation took effect from 26 August 2015. Had he not resigned, the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice would have removed him from judicial office.”

Hussain’s antisemitic Facebook posts included “u know the worlds coming to an end when a jew accuses another of being his kind!” and “jews like u are boring so find everything lame, here’s a penny go put it in the bank and u just might get a pound after ten years interest!”

In 2010, Hussain was expelled from the U.K.’s Respect political party—which is led by outspoken anti-Israel lawmaker George Galloway—over his antisemitic views. The U.K.’s Sunday Telegraph published an exposé in December 2014 that found Hussain was still an active judge in the British court system despite the knowledge of his publicly expressed antisemitism.

“We commend the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office for its ruling that antisemitism must be treated with zero tolerance, our only regret being the protracted nature of this investigation,” Jonathan Sacerdoti, CAA’s director of communications, said Thursday.